Bethel's Meadow by Gregory Shultz Page B

“here we go: After Marty died three years ago—that was my husband—I just couldn’t carry on with a full-time practice anymore. I was totally burned out from it. I’d only done it for eight years but it had seemed more like twenty to me. We owned three houses and a yacht, and his construction business somehow ate up a lot of our money. Especially when you consider the laundering of cash to obscure his gambling activities, it was the biggest financial black hole you could ever see. I had to work double the hours of other psychiatrists, sometimes working more than that, including weekends and holidays. Things were that bad.
    “Finally, after Marty died, I had to settle his gambling debts using all of the life insurance proceeds. I just couldn’t go back and effectively start over. It took over a year to settle his gambling debts, and I lost two of the houses and had to have a fire sale on the yacht to finally even the score with those lunatic mobsters. And now, this house is all we have left, and I’m just barely making payments. We had taken out a second mortgage on it before he killed himself, the rotten bastard.
    “Anyway, I’m just burned out, baby. I am burned, burned, burned out. Devin wants to go to an expensive college in two years, and the only way I can see to do that and to still keep this house is to do whatever it takes to get more money in my bank account.”
    “So just go back to practicing full time,” I said. I shouldn’t have said it. Good thing I still had her pinned down or she would have decked me.
    “Listen up,” she said angrily. “I’m done with doing that bullshit full time. So-called manic-depressives and schizophrenics are just the most pathetic people God ever put on the planet. It is such fucking bullshit. There’s no blood test or MRI or anything of the sort to truly identify a manic-depressive. We have only the whining and self-pitying accounts of their sorry lives to go by.
    “No, baby, I’m getting my money some other way. I’m going to find a man, a good man, a wealthy man who can take care of me. I’m almost forty, baby. I’m not going to start over again. No fucking way.”
    After that diatribe I let her go. She turned away from me and curled up into the fetal position. It was really odd. She didn’t say a thing for five very long minutes. When I finally touched her shoulder, she flinched and told me to leave her alone.
    “That’s a hell of a way to begin a new relationship,” I said to her. “I think I’ve worn out my welcome. I really didn’t mean to upset you.”
    She turned over and smiled. It was a sad and tender smile. It really got to me.
    “Before you go,” she said, “you have to do one thing for me.”
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “Fuck me.”

10
     
    I WAS READING PAGE 750 of Atlas Shrugged as I lay on my living room couch. I wasn’t buying into all of Rand’s philosophical views, but it was still an inspiring read. I was ready to get off my ass and do something with my life. No more of this bullshit of feeling victimized because an Indian had taken my job. After all, the higher-ups at the banking company were only trying to bolster their profits by cutting back on expenses. Why pay a hundred and twenty grand a year to an American citizen when you can get a really hungry foreigner to do the job for a fraction of that amount? I convinced myself to just accept it and move on. I resolved to get back to work again, doing anything I had to do to make money.
    Samantha was right: money has no mother.
    It was close to seven o’clock on Sunday evening. Despite having slept on the floor in Samantha’s living room last night, I did feel much better than I had at any point yesterday. A mild, nagging headache and a hint of nausea were all I had to tolerate right now. The only thing I was really trying to recover from was the freight train named Samantha Fleming. She had more energy and more sex drive than anyone I had ever known. It was as if that